Amiable with Big Teeth

by Claude McKay

  “Have you anything to propose?” said Delta Castle.

  “We might take Mrs. Witern to some spot—it’s her first time in Harlem,” said Seraphine.

  “But where can we go?” Bunchetta asked. “It’s too early for a cabaret and I’m sick of Harlem cafés.”

  “The Airplane is the only place that I can think of,” said Newton Castle. He poured himself a highball.

  Only Bunchetta of the Tower was a frequent visitor to the Airplane. Delta Castle went occasionally and Seraphine said that she had dropped in twice. None of the other members besides the three felt like going to the Airplane except former Washingtonian Iris Marlow, who was a little jealous of Seraphine’s fashionable popularity. She decided that she would see the Airplane for the first time. Lucy Lincoln Washington declined the invitation a little coldly. She was the oldest and most precisely formal member of the Tower and disapproved of the modern fad of slumming parties which was recently developing among the Aframerican elite. Mrs. Witern and Professor Makepeace (who was rejuvenating himself under the stimulus of new people’s movements) were happy to string along.

  Of the variety of dens and dives that pullulated in Harlem during the glorious intoxicating era of Prohibition,4 the Airplane was the only one of highly stimulating interest that was carried over into the revolution of Repeal—the only one that maintained its allure amidst the bountiful blossoming of bars and grills beckoning with gaily glittering neon lights and luxurious interiors.

  The Airplane was ingeniously located on the top floor of a tenement on Seventh Avenue. Two rooms of a three-room apartment were turned into one to make the Airplane Tea Garden and it still held the atmosphere of an old-fashioned apartment. Its location on the top floor was an asset. Customers had to ride up there in a creaking old elevator. Riding in that elevator with the regular tenants was enough to give the customers who came from a more salubrious environment a funny feeling of going somewhere.

  The proprietor, Buster Quincy, in Prohibition time operated a basement joint in which he dispensed synthetic gin and other hot alcohol. Risky and energetic Buster broke the law like the rest of them, when everybody—gangster, reformer, radical and plain Mr. Citizen—was itching to beat the law in those wild artificial fermenting days. But when Repeal ushered in a new era Buster decided that he would keep the commandments. He took a chance on changing his luck and hoisted himself from the basement to the top floor. And his luck did not desert him.

  The fast-spending gentry of the general staffs of the policy game,5 no longer affluent, were not as heretofore the best customers. And the downtowners who formerly appreciated the exotic sultry nutshells of Harlem speakeasies, now that those landmarks had disappeared, were more inclined to the neighborhood amenities of their own café society. But a few staunch regulars followed Buster in his heavenly hike and new faces appeared.

  Buster installed a replica of an old-fashioned bar, but served no alcoholic beverages. Not to his best friend. If any guests asked for stimulants, he offered to go out and get it. If they offered him a drink he was effusive with thanks in declining and explaining that he never drank while he was working and he was working all the time. But many of them would leave something in the bottle (sometimes as much as a half) for Buster to drink at his leisure. And this he would resell when someone else asked for liquor and he “went out to get it.”

  Yes, Buster Quincy was a very shrewd fellow in the age of Repeal, for the time was ungodly tough for God’s swarthy step-children. Above the bar there was a crudely executed but arresting painting of an airplane in the sky and a descending parachute jumper caught up in a tall tree. Many thought that this picture was intended to represent the exploits of the notorious Aframerican Hubert Fauntleroy Julian, who had visited Ethiopia at the time of the coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie, and by whom he was decorated and made a colonel of aviation.

  But Buster said that the artist and himself had something different in mind. That when the idea occurred to him to move his place from low down to high up, he wanted to call it the Lindy Hop because it was a handsome name and he was also an amateur of the dance. But the Aframerican gossip said that Lindbergh detested Aframericans, because they had desecrated the sublimity of his glorious hop across the Atlantic by immortalizing it in a popular dance.6 Lindbergh was said to be so incensed that later when a colored man also discovered the poor body of his kidnapped baby, he was not given any credit for it. Buster, deciding that he did not want to contribute anything to increase Lindbergh’s anger against his race, discarded the name of the Lindy Hop in favor of the Airplane.

  A happy incident gave the Airplane its successful boost in the winter of 1934–35. An old beau mondish friend and former customer of Buster’s arrived from abroad and brought a party of five to his place one night. Also present was a new thespian group that were planning to launch a Marxist theatre. With them was an actress, once famous, who hankered after a comeback in a new type of drama. When Buster was told who she was he asked her for her autograph. She loudly and indignantly refused, much to Buster’s embarrassment.

  Buster was saved from his unfortunate fix by his beau monde friend, who said that his group would be honored to donate their autographs to the Airplane, which they did. They were the Countess of X., Lord and Lady Y., the honorable daughter of a Baron, and Mr. A., an internationally famous and rich writer. That incident gave Buster the idea of procuring a large guest book in which his customers should inscribe their names. There were some exciting international signatures in that book,7 among them: Marlborough, Ostrovsky, Bourbon-Parme, Colonna, Braganza, Glenconner, Torby, Boris, Louis-Ferdinand, Windermere, Hohenlohe, Murat, Vanderlinden, Segur, Bibesco—besides notable American names, scions of real estate houses and merchant princes and names of the high bohemian and fine arts world—such names in such a setting that might have stimulated even the exquisite surfeited appetite of a Marcel Proust.8

  Some Aframerican visitors thought that many of the famous signatures in the Airplane’s log book were fake. Buster never wasted any time trying to prove that they were not. As a master of ceremonies of his Aquarium (he sometimes called the Airplane by that name, as he sold no liquor) he tried to please all his customers. Mr. High-up may be rubbing shoulders with Mr. Low-down at the bar, but he wouldn’t attempt to introduce them, unless he was aware that the desire was mutual.

  Buster had had visits from the plainclothes police, who were tipped off that there was something phony about a joint which was frequented by richly dressed downtowners going up in an elevator carrying Harlem rags. But his conduct convinced them that nothing was wrong. Friends suggested that he should embellish the place with modernistic fixtures. But he wouldn’t make any changes: the best customers liked it more as it was.

  Although prices were very low, the same as in any ordinary lunch counter, Buster’s Harlem customers were not from the common crowd. Neither were they from the smarter set. They were mostly young men and women who were working hard to achieve something in one of the arts—writing, painting, music or the stage. Among them were a few students and journalists and some of the more easy-going professional persons.

  On a Saturday night when it was crowded the place could accommodate forty people. But there were not many this night that the members of the Tower chose to show the place to their guests. There was a downtown party of two men and a woman, three young men sitting at the bar with an out-of-work cabaret entertainer, a couple of old regulars of Buster’s former place and, seated by himself, reading an Aframerican magazine, there was Professor Koazhy. His coat pockets were bulging with pamphlets and papers and a small bottle of ginger ale was set before him. He adjusted his glasses attached to a black ribbon to regard the Tower party as they entered. He got up and went over to Lij Alamaya and they shook hands.

  “Well, it’s nice to see you here, sir,” said Koazhy. “I see you’re stepping out, sampling everything.” He winked and nodded in the direction of the women wh
o were divesting themselves of their wraps.

  Lij Alamaya introduced Koazhy to Professor Makepeace as “Professor.” Newton Castle was irritated; he did not consider Koazhy entitled to the dignity of “Professor.” Also he resented Koazhy’s wink and leer, when he greeted Alamaya. Besides, he disliked his politics.

  “Won’t you join me at my table?” said Koazhy. “I’m all alone.”

  Alamaya was willing, but Newton Castle interrupted him, saying, “We have a special party of ladies.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind at all,” said Koazhy. “That makes it so much pleasanter.”

  The women joined them now and the Tower girls were displeased by the embarrassing presence of Professor Koazhy. Bunchetta and Seraphine, Delta Castle and Iris Marlow took the introduction to him very coldly, scarcely opening their mouths and not offering their hands. But Mrs. Witern held out her hand to his and casually sat down. And so the girls sat likewise.

  Buster came over and spoke to Bunchetta, who presented him to the group. They ordered ginger ale and orange drinks. From an inner pocket Koazhy extracted a pint of bonded rye and placed it on the table. “You must share with me,” he said.

  “Oh no, we couldn’t, we just couldn’t,” said Newton Castle. “That is unfair—”

  “Unfair to what?” said Koazhy. “There’s no strike on here, unless you want to strike. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to offer you a drink from America’s bonded golden treasury.”

  General laughter warmed the chilly civility and Mrs. Witern said: “I like the joke on the Treasury.”

  Buster brought the soft drinks and glasses and Professor Koazhy poured his stuff.

  “This is like speakeasy days, with a little difference,” said Bunchetta.

  “A big difference, if you ask me,” said Newton Castle. “Wasn’t it strange how all the speakeasies vanished so quickly like snowflakes in springtime?”

  “They didn’t altogether,” said Koazhy. “The speakeasies have gone back to the old-style buffet flats of pre-Prohibition days.”

  “This place is extremely interesting,” said Mrs. Witern. “It is like a clever trick. Riding up here in the rickety elevator and then coming through that iron gate and finding this bar. You would imagine it was an opium joint or something worse.”

  “It reminds me a little of a place in Paris, Le Bateau au Ciel, up on the hill in Montmartre,” said Mrs. Castle. “It’s not the same, but it’s the same crazy idea.”

  “That’s the thing,” said Newton Castle. “This place is for the crazy crowd, the Harlem remnant of the lost generation.9 They don’t think, for they can’t think—they sneer at the Popular Front and the Proletariat. They’re still existing in the hectic speakeasy past and they can’t realize that something is rotten with the world.”

  “Don’t be so oratorical in a place like this, my dear man,” said Professor Koazhy. “Something has always been rotten with the world ever since it was created.”

  “If this place is for the crazy crowd, Mr. Castle, then we are crazy too, for we are here,” said Mrs. Witern.

  “Newton will never believe that he’s crazy until he lands in a lunatic ward with a straitjacket strapped on him,” said Bunchetta, in her extra syrupy malicious accent.

  “Why, Bunchy!” Delta Castle exclaimed.

  Mrs. Witern tactfully changed to something else: “I was fascinated by all the questions you people put to Lij Alamaya and his illuminating answers. But there is one thing I didn’t find out about and I think it is important. What is the Tower actually doing in the Hands to Ethiopia campaign?”

  “Oh, we’re working with the medical unit,” Bunchetta spoke up quickly, as if apprehensive that somebody else might say the wrong thing. “We are raising money to help buy equipment.”

  “Bunchetta, you may as well be honest and tell the truth,” said Newton Castle, seizing the opportunity to get back at her. “You know perfectly well that the Tower is not supporting the Hands to Ethiopia, just like all the rest of our professionals. I mean to say all of our intelligentsia.”

  “I never knew there was such a wide cleavage within your group, Mr. Castle,” Mrs. Witern said. “I was under the impression that yours was a movement of all the people and I don’t quite understand your saying that the intelligentsia is not supporting it. How is it then that Miss Peixota’s father is the chairman of the Hands to Ethiopia?”

  Seraphine felt a little confused and fidgeted nervously with her bag. How could she explain to Mrs. Witern that although she was ranked among the best element of the community, her father, who made it possible, could not belong.

  Delta Castle ventured the explanation: “Our people cannot be judged entirely by the standards of yours, Mrs. Witern. We still have a long ways to go. Many of the parents of our professional class are working for your people as domestic servants. And even when they retire after they have educated their children to obtain decent positions when they might help their parents, they make no pretense of belonging to the intelligentsia.”

  Seraphine showed her annoyance at Delta Castle’s explanation: “I am not sure that your explanation is the correct one. My mother came from the best people in Durham and your husband is from Chicago, where there is no society at all. And Father had as much solid property as the best of them in Harlem. If he doesn’t fool with society it’s because it seems so stupid to him.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of your family, darling,” said Delta. “I was speaking generally. Bunchetta understands what I’m trying to show. She’s a student of sociology and a social worker.”

  Mrs. Witern was curious to know more about Mr. Peixota and how he made his money. But she said instead: “I believe I understand and that no offence was intended. But you should not be starting out on the wretched road of class differences and become a divided people. For the world is going a different way, a finer way. This is the people’s day. This is the hour of the triumph of world democracy.”

  “Democracy is a luxury of modern civilization,” said Professor Koazhy. “I am always drumming that into the heads of my students. People are talking loosely about democracy as if it were a social religion. But it is not! It is a system of social evolution exactly as a civilized human being is a creature of natural evolution.”

  “I believe that democracy is an idea,” said Bunchetta, “and you might change your mind about what it is, Mr. Koazhy, if you were engaged in social work.”

  Like Seraphine, Iris Marlow was not interested in serious social discussions and she fondled her empty glass and said: “What about a little drink?” The bottle was empty and Newton Castle said he would go out and get some.

  “Buster will get it,” said Bunchetta. But Castle preferred to go himself. Soon after he was gone, Dorsey Flagg entered the Airplane and was invited over to the Tower group. He sat in Castle’s chair and, noticing the glass, asked if the seat was reserved. Seraphine said that Newton Castle was sitting there but he had gone out to get something to drink. Flagg scowled and said he would sit at the bar. But they all insisted that he should join the party.

  Flagg and Newton Castle had met earlier in the evening at the emergency executive meeting of the Hands to Ethiopia at which the twenty-four members were present. It had been convened to make a final decision on the debatable issue of Flagg’s accompanying Lij Alamaya on his tour. Thoroughly coached by Maxim Tasan, Newton Castle had marshaled all the reasons to impress the committee that it was undesirable that Flagg should go. The most important reason was the White Friends of Ethiopia were opposed to Flagg because he was said to be sympathetic to the Fascists. Castle pointed out that Lij Alamaya needed all the publicity he could get. Some of the Friends were powerfully influential and could make it possible for Alamaya to get the right kind of publicity. But they would not use their influence in his behalf if his manager was a Fascist sympathizer. Castle said that Flagg had made a big blunder by supporting the Russian exile Leon Trotsky, who w
as anti-democratic and a spy and informer for the Fascists-Nazis. It would be preposterous to send a friend of Fascists to introduce to the American public the envoy of a country which was invaded by the Fascist state.

  Flagg defended himself. He said he was not a Fascist nor was he a Communist. He said the Fascists, Nazis and Communists all believed in and practised a ruthless dictatorship over the peoples. He was not a friend of Leon Trotsky but as a democrat, he had defended his right to express his opinions. He had opposed the Popular Front and its drive among Aframericans, because it was promoted by the Soviet Dictatorship. He could not imagine how a nation which held down millions of people under an iron dictatorship could be the chief sponsor of a People’s Front to safeguard Democracy. It was as fantastic as the idea of an incorrigible gangster and law-breaker starting a campaign for legislation to make the nation safe for legality and honesty. Flagg finished by saying that he was ready to resign from the Hands to Ethiopia committee and let some other person accompany Lij Alamaya on his tour if that were for the better interests of Ethiopia. He warned the committee against irresponsible agitators who, seeking to serve other interests, were trying to divide the Aframerican people with the highly intellectual issues of Fascism and Communism.

  Dorsey Flagg was stoutly supported by Chairman Pablo Peixota. And the majority of the committeemen were with him. They all had a deep detestation of the Communists from observation of their propaganda tactics in the Aframerican community. And they were also aroused to hatred of the Fascists because of the Italian attack on Ethiopia. They were aware that the Nazis believed that the great blond European race was the superior of all and the fittest to control the destiny of the world, that they were proscribing the Jews, as colored people were proscribed, and that Hitler said in Mein Kampf that black people were half apes.10 They could not believe that any colored person in his sense could be a Fascist-Nazi. What on the face of the earth could he and his people gain by adherence to the Fascist-Nazi social philosophy? But neither could they understand why some sections of the Aframerican intelligentsia were fascinated by the idea of Communist Dictatorship. Under a dictatorship they could imagine only the ruthless rule of an unscrupulous white clique with no regard or consideration for the rights of a colored minority. Existence was difficult and hard enough under a Democracy. Yet a Democracy was circumambient and elastic, there were byways of grace and surcease. But a dictatorship was all of human life drawn relentlessly, ruthlessly together in a well-greased hangman’s noose.